Alright, so: it’s been a little longer than usual since my last update. That means I’ve got more to share, right?

Well, yes and no. It has been an eventful two weeks, I’ll admit that. I’ve got a fair bit done in that time. But on another level, the past little while has been slightly less productive: on a words-per-day basis, my average has been hovering closer to 2000 words than 3000.

Still, though, even with my somewhat reduced pace, I’ve been making good progress. I finished the new Nightmares Inc. ending, for instance: of course, I’ll have to leave that ending alone for a little while, then give it another look-over or two before I start looking for beta readers. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have to rewrite the ending again. I’m not entirely sure how well the ending will work with the rest of the book: it fit well in my head, but as any writer will tell you, how a book looks in your head is often quite different from how it actually looks on the page.

But, yes, the new Nightmares Inc. ending is done, which is another monkey off my back. I hope to edit both Nightmares Inc and The Ravage late in the spring, or perhaps early in the summer…although again, we’ll see if that actually happens. I’ve got like a million different writing projects to keep track of, and that’s not even considering my schoolwork, or the fact that starting in May I’ll be working a summer job again.

It’s also yet to be seen which of those two books I’ll send to a pro editor first. I’m leaning toward The Ravage, just because it’s a much shorter book – meaning hiring and editor to look at it will cost me less, seeing how editors charge by the word – and because it’s a self-contained, stand-alone story. Nightmares Inc., in the meantime, is the first book in a planned trilogy, a trilogy I haven’t even fully conceptualized yet. DreamHackers Ltd. – book 2 in the trilogy – has changed shape about ten million times by this point. It’s still a very fluid book: at this point, I have no idea how that one’s goanna turn out.

With all that said, though, at this point, The Ravage and Nightmares Inc. are the odds-on favourites to become my first published novel…if I ever even do get a novel published. They’re the ones closest to being in a marketable state…although even they still need a lot more time. And who knows? Maybe it’ll take 20 more years to get a novel published, and the one that makes it happen will be one of the big, complicated ones, like Keepers of Eternity. We’ll see.

Of course, since finishing the new Nightmares Inc. ending, I haven’t just sat around twiddling my thumbs. I’ve gotten a start on both the Kosan rewrite and the first draft of Chronicles of Usi Book 1 (or Zuza’s Book, as I sometimes like to call it), although again, progress has been somewhat slow (though steady). I’ve been a bit slower on Chronicles of Usi, though, just because of how big both the story and the world will be: if you don’t count Kosan, this is my first real attempt at epic fantasy, and those sorts of stories have a lot of moving parts to them. I might speed up more once I really get myself acclimated with the world and how it works, and once I really get into the meat of the plot…but, as with most things in life, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Oh, except for this: still no word on Endure. The magazine I submitted to asks you wait 4 months before inquiring about a submission’s status. It’s been almost that long now: just 2 more weeks, and we’ll be there.

Well, I’ll see you all next week. As always, have fun, stay safe and keep reading.